LATE 19TH CENTURY, IN THE MANNER OF THOMAS MESSENGER

The boar-headed 'rhyton' horn lamp derives from a celebrated antiquity illustrated in G.B. Piranesi's, 'Vasi, Candelabri, Cippi, Sarcofagi...', 1778. The stamp of Thomas Messenger and Sons of Birmingham is recorded on a pair of closely related lamps in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and a rhyton also features on the firm's trade-card of the 1830s (C. Gilbert and A Wells-Cole,The Fashionable Fire Place, 1660-1840, Temple Newsam House, Leeds, 1985, pp.145 and 140 fig. 95).